Think like a Fish

Nature design and restoration between different forms of knowledge

Many European landscapes have been heavily engineered over centuries. Today, restoration and rewilding initiatives are emerging, raising important questions about the knowledge systems guiding these transformations. Especially since the Montreal Agreement to protect 30% of the ocean and the land, designing new protected areas is crucial, but there are also critical voices towards this approach. In Germany, rewilding often means excluding human activity while in many other knowledge traditions (traditional ecological knowledge, TEK), the separation between human and non-human, nature and culture, is much less strong and human guardianship is much more common. What happens when those different knowledge systems are brought together? And in how far is, asked from a Western perspective, are learning and cooperation possible without violating indigenous self-understanding or local knowledge in general for landscape rewilding and design?

Since 1988, the Schader Foundation has been promoting dialogue between the social sciences and practice. Through its own projects, it creates spaces in which science, politics, business and civil society can work together to find answers to current challenges.